哈利波特與魔法石The Boy Who Lived (二)
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At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. “Little tyke,” chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house. He got into his car and backed out of number four’s drive.
It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn’t realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn’t a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, looking at the sign; cats couldn’t read maps or signs. Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.
But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn’t bear people who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren’t young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt — these people were obviously collecting for something . . . yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.
八點(diǎn)半時(shí)，杜斯利先生拿起他的公文包去上班。臨行前，在杜斯刊夫人的面頰上吻了一下算是告別。他本來要在達(dá)德里臉上也親一口的，但是因?yàn)檫_(dá)德里正在發(fā)脾氣并且把麥片往墻上扔，
便只好作罷。"小淘氣！"杜斯利先生呵呵大笑地走出門口鉆進(jìn)他的車，倒著車駛出了四號(hào)車道。
當(dāng)他駛到街的拐角處時(shí)，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了第一件不尋常的事情——一只貓?jiān)诳吹貓D。
開始時(shí)杜斯利先生并沒有感到有什么不妥。到他意識(shí)到并猛地轉(zhuǎn)過頭去看時(shí)，只見那只肥嘟嘟的貓還蹲在那里，可是地圖卻沒有了。天哪，杜斯利先生想，我怎么可能有這種想法呢？
剛才我一定是眼花了。杜斯利先生眨了眨眼，又看了那只貓一眼。
那只貓回了他一眼。正在杜斯利先生駛進(jìn)拐角準(zhǔn)備上另一條路時(shí)，他又在后視鏡里看了一眼那只貓，現(xiàn)在那只貓正在讀著"普里懷特街"的路牌——不，它只是朝路牌看而已，貓是不可能會(huì)認(rèn)識(shí)任何地圖或路牌的。杜斯利先生渾身一抖，想極力擺脫關(guān)于那只貓的任何想法。在接下來的路程里，杜斯利想的全都是關(guān)于他如何希望得到一大筆鉆機(jī)的訂單之類的事情。
就快要到鎮(zhèn)上的時(shí)候，關(guān)于鉆機(jī)的想法又被其他事情代替了。
像往常一樣，杜斯利先生的車被卡在塞車長(zhǎng)龍中動(dòng)彈不得，他不曾注意到好像有很多穿著奇怪的人走來走去。他們都穿著披風(fēng)。杜斯列先生最看不慣穿得稀奇古怪的人——都是年輕人投酷的玩意！他想這也許是某種新的款式吧。他的手指不耐煩地敲擊著方向盤，并目又看了看近處一群衣著古怪的人。他們?cè)谂d奮地小聲談?wù)撝裁?，什斯利突然變得很生氣，因?yàn)樗l(fā)現(xiàn)他們并不都是年輕小伙子，其中一個(gè)穿著祖母綠披風(fēng)的人居然比他年紀(jì)都大，搞什么鬼！
但接著杜斯利先生又不生氣了，可能這是一出表演吧——這群人很明顯在收集某樣?xùn)|西。是的，肯定是這樣。車龍開始移動(dòng)起來，不久，杜斯利先生就到了格朗寧斯工廠停車場(chǎng)。他的注意力又回到鉆機(jī)上來了。
